Variability in Mechanical Properties of Agave Americana L. Fiber “Intra-Plant Study”

In this work, a study of intra plant variability in agave fiber mechanical properties was conducted. It is based on the Design of experiments techniques and statistical analyses. By taking into account the variation of modalities related to the fiber collecting mode, some parameters were defined and considered as controlling factors, namely the position of the fiber in the leaf (fiber maturity) and the level of the leaf in the plant (leaf age). The main results show that fibers taken from different leaves at the same level of a plant have approximately much close properties. However, fibers located at different positions in the leaf itself (tip, middle or base) exhibit different properties.Besides, fibers belonging to inferior levels of the plant (oldest leaves) have different properties compared to those selected from the top of the plant (youngest leaves).